A light in a divided state.

For 15 years, the late John Henry McCray brought to life the turbulent history of race, politics and civil rights most closely lived by black South Carolinians.

Editor, writer, and activist in the 1940s and '50s, McCray published The Lighthouse and Informer, a weekly militant black newspaper, from 1939 until 1954.

``It was extremely valuable, one of the main newspapers of the era,'' said Tom Johnson, field archivist for the University of South Carolina's South Caroliniana Library, a repository of state history.

``It's one of the principal newspapers, but certainly one of the principal African-American newspapers of the 20th Century from all points of view.''

Historians say the factor that most distinguished McCray's newspaper from other black publications of the day, other than its uncharacteristic longevity, was its willingness to take on South Carolina's white supremacist politicians, including Strom Thurmond, and late governors James Byrnes …